Annarose Fitzgerald

Susan Romano

ENGL 540

27 February 2009

CSWR Research Notes

 I’m interested in doing a study of the rhetoric used in the women’s labor movement alongside the women’s suffrage movement during the “Doldrums” period of women’s suffrage (1890-1915). Since some great strides were made for women factory workers during this era, I’m wondering why the voting movement lagged behind. For my CSWR visit, therefore, I hoped to find primary sources related to women’s labor and/or suffrage issues from this time period.

First, I went into the Gerritsen Collection database to find articles on women’s labor and/or voting issues. I typed in the search terms “factory” and “women” within the dates 1870-1905. Then I had to wade through a few British periodicals before I found an anonymous article titled “The Courageous Women Factory Inspectors of New York City” in The Women’s Tribune (Vol. 8, Issue 53, 1891, p. 257) published out of Portland, OR. The article detailed the procedures for factory inspectors to follow to insure that underage children were not working without a signed affidavit from a parent, and that the managers were following proper building codes, such as putting doors on the elevators. The author also stresses the need for women factory inspectors, seeing as the managers would be more polite and compliant toward women factory inspectors, and workers would feel more comfortable talking to her candidly about working conditions. If necessary, the female inspector would also have the full support of law enforcement officers to accompany her if the manager was being difficult.

I was unsure of exactly what I was looking for, or what I should be looking for, so I think I found what I wanted without having to “settle” for something else. From skimming other issues, it looks like The Women’s Tribune has a high amount of articles on suffrage and labor news throughout the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, so I believe I’ve found an excellent starting point for further research.

My archival research took significantly more time than my online research. While the CSWR has TONS of materials related to women’s labor and voting organizations, I found it difficult  to find things from the time period I wanted. The librarian then suggested I type “Dorothy Cline” into the Rocky Mountain Online Archive (RMAO). This online guide tells you the locations of archival collections in Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico; when you search, you can limit the search to collections in the CSWR. Prior to being a political science professor at UNM from 1946-1970, Cline was actively involved in national politics, working for such organizations as the Cleveland League of Women Voters and serving on the Women’s Advisory Committee for the Office of Labor Production during World War II.

Once I found the page listing the call numbers for the Inventory of the Dorothy I. Cline Papers (1915-1990), I then went to “Edit” on the toolbar, then “Find,” then typed in “vot.” This brought me to the call number for a folder described as “Suffrage-Vote No Campaign, 1915.” To retrieve this document, I requested the box with the following information:

Call #: MSS 717 BC, Box 2, Folder 1

I glanced at the contents of the entire box, which contained a variety of newspaper clippings, meeting transcripts, and official reports and studies, mostly mimeographs of typed documents, from the committees, organizations, and task forces related to women’s issues that Cline worked with from the 1920s through the 1970s. I got sidetracked from my original find when I came across a transcript of a hearing on July 19, 1943 for the Women’s Advisory Committee (WAC) of the Office of Labor Production. This hearing appeared to be for the WAC to make recommendations to the War Production Board for the needs of women factory workers. I was pleasantly surprised to find a recommendation to regulate childcare fees to make it more affordable.

 When I opened the “Suffrage—Vote No Campaign, 1915,” folder, I found a thick piece of paper the size and stock of an index card, which appears to be something handed out to passers-by on the street. At the top, it reads “Popular Vote Has Defeated Woman Suffrage, ” and then provides a table with the states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota from the years 1912-1914, with the numbers of people against suffrage in those states. It does not specify the source of these statistics, or whether these numbers reflected both women and men in these states, and at the bottom of the card proclaims “A Great Majority of Pennsylvania Women Do Not Wish To Vote,” urging the reader to “Stand by the Women” and “Vote NO on Women Suffrage Amendment No. 1 at the General Election.” On the back of the card, someone (presumably Cline herself), had written a recipe for black fruit cake in neat pencil cursive. (I thought of copying it for myself to try at home and perhaps share with the class, but with ingredients like mace and dried fig, it did not seem all that appetizing.) Perhaps the use of this propaganda as a recipe card expresses exactly what Cline thought of those trying to stall the progress of women’s voting rights.

All in all I found this to be a productive and interesting research assignment. I was not expecting the CSWR to hold as many resources for national issues as it does, and I found some good leads for a project on reading the rhetoric of the women’s suffrage movement alongside that of the women’s labor movement.